Nine years ago, at around this time, I was finishing up the Clarion West workshop. A little more than nine years ago, it was my 2nd week, and the first time we were expected to produce short stories. That’s a short story in a week, or in my case, since I chose to have my stories critiqued on Mondays, a story in just a few days.

So you may understand why I relied on a two sentence prompt I had hanging around my hard drive. It was about a young man, in a balloon, who was afraid...